The Religion of the Samurai Part 31

Hereupon anyone understands that this life (of ours) is no more than the temporary union of numerous elements (mental and physical).

Originally there is no Atman to distinguish one being from another.

For whose sake, then, should he be l.u.s.tful or angry? For whose sake should he take life,[FN#350] or commit theft, or give alms, or keep precepts? (Thus thinking) at length he sets his mind free from the virtues and vices subjected to the pa.s.sions[FN#351] of the Three Worlds, and abides in the discriminative insight into (the nature of) the Anatman[FN#352] only.

By means of that discriminative insight he makes himself pure from l.u.s.t, and the other (two pa.s.sions) puts an end to various sorts of Karma, and realizes the Bhutatathata[FN#353] of Anatman. In brief, he attains to the State of Arhat,[FN#354] has his body reduced to ashes, his intelligence annihilated, and entirely gets rid of sufferings.

[FN#350] A. 'He understands the truth of misery.' The truth of Duhkha, or misery, is the first of the four n.o.ble Satyas, or Truths, that ought to be realized by the Hinayanists. According to the Hinayana doctrine, misery is a necessary concomitant of sentient life.'

[FN#351] A. 'He destroys Samudaya.' The truth of Samudaya, or acc.u.mulation, the second of the four Satyas, means that misery is acc.u.mulated or produced by pa.s.sions. This truth should be realized by the removal of pa.s.sions.

[FN#352] A. 'This is the truth of Marga.' The truth of Marga, or Path, is the fourth of the four Satyas. There are the eight right Paths that lead to the extinction of pa.s.sions; (1) Right view (to discern truth), (2) right thought (or purity of will and thought), (3) right speech (free from nonsense and errors), (4) right action, (5) right diligence, (6) right meditation, (7) right memory, (8) right livelihood.

[FN#353] A. 'This is the truth of Nirodha.' Nirodha, or destruction, the third of the four Satyas, means the extinction of pa.s.sions.

Bhutatathati of Anatman means the truth of the non existence of Atma or soul, and is the aim and end of the Hinayanist philosophy.

[FN#354] Arhat, the Killer of thieves (i.e., pa.s.sions), means one who conquered his pa.s.sions. It means, secondly, one who is exempted from birth, or one who is free from transmigration. Thirdly, it means one deserving worship. So the Arhat is the highest sage who has attained to Nirvana by the destruction of all pa.s.sions.

According to the doctrine of this school the two aggregates, material and spiritual, together with l.u.s.t, anger, and folly, are the origin of ourselves and of the world in which we live. There exists nothing else, either in the past or in the future, that can be regarded as the origin.

Now let us say (a few words) by way of refutation. That which (always) stands as the origin of life, birth after birth, generation after generation, should exist by itself without cessation. Yet the Five Vijnyanas[FN#355] cease to perform their functions when they lack proper conditions, (while) the Mano-vijnyana[FN#356] is lost at times (in unconsciousness). There are none of those four (material) elements in the heavenly worlds of Arupa. How, then, is life sustained there and kept up in continuous birth after birth?

Therefore we know that those who devote themselves to the study of this doctrine also cannot trace life to its origin.

[FN#355] A. 'The conditions are the Indriyas and the Visayas, etc.'

Indriyas are organs of sense, and Visayas are objects on which the sense acts. Five Vijnyanas are--(1) The sense of sight, (2) the sense of hearing, (3) the sense of smell, (4) the sense of taste, (5) the sense of touch.

[FN#356] Mano-vijnyana is the mind itself, and the last of the six Vijnyanas of the Hinayana doctrine. A. '(For instance), in a state of trance, in deep slumber, in Nirodha-samapatti (where no thought exists), in Asamjnyi-samapatti (in which no consciousness exists), and in Avrhaloka (the thirteenth of Brahmalokas).

3. The Mahayana Doctrine of Dharmalaksana.[FN#357]

This doctrine tells us that from time immemorial all sentient beings naturally have eight different Vijnyanas[FN#358] and the eighth, Alaya-vijnyana,[FN#359] is the origin of them. (That is), the Alaya suddenly brings forth the 'seeds'[FN#360] of living beings and of the world in which they live, and through transformation gives rise to the seven Vijnyanas. Each of them causes external objects on which it acts to take form and appear. In reality there is nothing externally existent. How, then, does Alaya give rise to them through transformation? Because, as this doctrine tells us, we habitually form the erroneous idea that Atman and external objects exist in reality, and it acts upon Alaya and leaves its impressions[FN#361]

there. Consequently, when Vijnyanas are awakened, these impressions (or the seed-ideas) transform and present themselves (before the mind's eye) Atman and external objects.

[FN#357] This school studies in the main the nature of things (Dharma), and was so named. The doctrine is based on Avatamsaka-sutra and Samdhi-nirmocana-sutra, and was systematized by Asamga and Vasu-bandhu. The latter's book, Vidyamatra-siddhi-castra-karika, is held to be the best authoritative work of the school.

[FN#358] (1) The sense of sight; (2) the sense of hearing; (3) the sense of smell; (4) the sense of taste; (5) the sense of touch; (6) Mano-vijnyana (lit., mind-knowledge), or the perceptive faculty; (7) Klista-mano-vijnyana (lit., soiled-mind-knowledge), or an introspective faculty; (8) Alaya-vijnyana (lit., receptacle-knowledge), or ultimate-mind-substance.

[FN#359] The first seven Vijnyanas depend on the Alaya, which is said to hold all the 'seeds' of physical and mental objects.

[FN#360] This school is an extreme form of Idealism, and maintains that nothing separated from the Alaya can exist externally. The mind-substance, from the first, holds the seed ideas of everything, and they seem to the non-enlightened mind to be the external universe, but are no other than the transformation of the seed-ideas.

The five senses, and the Mano-vijnyana acting on them, take them for external objects really existent, while the seventh Vijnyana mistakes the eighth for Atman.

[FN#361] The non-enlightened mind, habitually thinking that Atman and external objects exist, leaves the impression of the seed-ideas on its own Alaya.

Then the sixth and the seventh[FN#362] Vijnyana veiled with Avidya, dwelling on them, mistake them for real Atman and the real external objects. This (error) may be compared with one diseased[FN#363] in the eye, who imagines that he sees various things (floating in the air) on account of his illness; or with a dreamer[FN#364] whose fanciful thoughts a.s.sume various forms of external objects, and present themselves before him. While in the dream he fancies that there exist external objects in reality, but on awakening he finds that they are nothing other than the transformation of his dreaming thoughts.

[FN#362] Avidya, or ignorance, which mistakes the illusory phenomena for realities.

[FN#363] A. 'A person with a serious disease sees the vision of strange colours, men, and things in his trance.'

[FN#364] A. 'That a dreamer fancies he sees things is well known to everybody.'

So are our lives. They are no other than the transformation of the Vijnyanas; but in consequence of illusion, we take them for the Atman and external objects existing in reality. From these erroneous ideas arise delusive thoughts that lead to the production of Karma; hence the round-of rebirth to time without end.[FN#365] When we understand these reasons, we can realize the fact that our lives are nothing but transformations of the Vijnyanas, and that the (eighth) Vijnyana is the origin.[FN#366]

[FN#365] A. 'As it was detailed above.'

[FN#366] A. 'An imperfect doctrine, which is refuted later.'

4. Mahayana Doctrine of the Nihilists.

This doctrine disproves (both) the Mahayana and the Hinayana doctrines above mentioned that adhere to Dharma-laksana, and suggestively discloses the truth of Transcendental Reality which is to be treated later.[FN#367] Let me state, first of all, what it would say in the refutation of Dharma-laksana.

[FN#367] A. "The nihilistic doctrine is stated not only in the various Prajnya-sutras (the books having Prajnya-paramita in their t.i.tles), but also in almost all Mahayana sutras. The above-mentioned three doctrines were preached (by the Buddha) in the three successive periods. But this doctrine was not preached at any particular period; it was intended to destroy at any time the attachment to the phenomenal objects. Therefore Nagarjuna tells us that there are two sorts of Prajnyas, the Common and the Special. The cravakas (lit., hearers) and the Pratyekabuddhas (lit., singly enlightened ones), or the Hinayanists, could hear and believe in, with the Bodhisattvas or the Mahayanists, the Common Prajnya, as it was intended to destroy their attachment to the external objects. Bodhisattvas alone could understand the Special Prajnya, as it secretly revealed the Buddha nature, or the Absolute. Each of the two great Indian teachers, cilabhadra and Jnyanaprabha, divided the whole teachings of the Buddha into three periods. (According to cilabhadra, A.D. 625, teacher of Hiuen Tsang, the Buddha first preached the doctrine of 'existence' to the effect that every living being is unreal, but things are real.

All the Hinayana sutras belong to this period. Next the Buddha preached the doctrine of the middle path, in Samdhi-nirmocana-sutra and others, to the effect that all the phenomenal universe is unreal, but that the mental substance is real. According to Jnyanaprabha, the Buddha first preached the doctrine of existence, next that of the existence of mental substance, and lastly that of unreality.) One says the doctrine of unreality was preached before that of Dharma-laksana, while the others say it was preached after. Here I adopt the latters' opinion."

If the external objects which are transformed are unreal, how can the Vijnyana, the transformer, be real? If you say the latter is really existent, but not the former,[FN#368] then (you a.s.sume that) the dreaming mind (which is compared with Alaya-vijnyana) is entirely different from the objects seen in the dream (which are compared with external objects). If they are entirely different, you ought not to identify the dream with the things dreamed, nor to identify the things dreamed with the dream itself. In other words, they ought to have separate existences. (And) when you awake your dream may disappear, but the things dreamed would remain.

[FN#368] A. 'In the following sentences I refute it, making use of the simile of the dream.'

Again, if (you say) that the things dreamed are not identical with the dream, then they would be really existent things. If the dream is not the same as the things dreamed, in what other form does it appear to you? Therefore you must acknowledge that there is every reason to believe that both the dreaming mind and the things dreamed are equally unreal, and that nothing exists in reality, though it seems to you as if there were a seer, and a seen, in a dream.

Thus those Vijnyanas also would be unreal, because all of them are not self-existent realities, their existence being temporary, and dependent upon various conditions.

"There is nothing," (the author of) Madhyamika-castra[FN#369] says, "that ever came into existence without direct and indirect causes.

Therefore there is anything that is not unreal in the world." He says again: "Things produced through direct and indirect causes I declare to be the very things which are unreal." (The author of) Craddhotdada-castra[FN#370] says: "All things in the universe present themselves in different forms only on account of false ideas. If separated from the (false) ideas and thoughts, no forms of those external objects exist." "All the physical forms (ascribed to Buddha)," says (the author of) a sutra,[FN#371] "are false and unreal. The beings that transcend all forms are called Buddhas."[FN#372] Consequently you must acknowledge that mind as well as external objects are unreal. This is the eternal truth of the Mahayana doctrine. We are driven to the conclusion that unreality is the origin of life, if we trace it back according to this doctrine.

[FN#369] The princ.i.p.al textbook of the Madhyamika School, by Nagarjuna and Nilanetra, translated into Chinese (A.D. 409) by k.u.marajiva.

[FN#370] A well-known Mahayana book ascribed to Acvaghosa, translated into Chinese by Paramartha. There exists an English translation by D. Suzuki.

[FN#371] Vajracchedha-prajnya-paramita-sutra, of which there exist three Chinese translations.

[FN#372] A. 'Similar pa.s.sages are found in every book of the Mahayana Tripitaka.'